Level B1 · Chapter 56
The Knight Back in Bed
At home they nurse him, close the shutters and will not let him touch a book. It looks as if it is all over, but he has not stopped thinking about setting out again.
What you will learn
- Say that something continues, stops or happens again, without changing the verb.
- Use seguir with a gerund, dejar de and volver a with an infinitive.
- Describe a recovery and a relapse precisely.
Before you read
Almost every verb in this lesson comes in a pair. Seguía hablando, no dejaba de contar, volvió a empezar. The first verb of each pair has stopped meaning what it means on its own: volver here is not returning anywhere, and dejar is not leaving anything behind. It has become a piece of machinery that tells you whether the second verb continues, ends or repeats. Spanish runs on these, and they are the fastest way to sound less like a textbook.The story in easy Spanish
Don Quijote volvió a su aldea metido en una jaula, sobre un carro de bueyes.
Don Quixote came back to his village inside a cage, on an ox cart.
Seguía convencido de que estaba encantado, y nadie quiso discutírselo.
He was still convinced that he was under a spell, and nobody wanted to argue about it.
El ama y la sobrina lo recibieron llorando y lo metieron en la cama.
The housekeeper and the niece welcomed him in tears and put him to bed.
No dejaron de cuidarlo durante días, con caldo caliente y las ventanas cerradas.
They did not stop looking after him for days, with hot broth and the shutters closed.
No le dejaban tocar un libro ni oír hablar de caballeros andantes.
They would not let him touch a book or hear talk of knights errant.
La sobrina escondió la llave del cuarto de los libros y no se la dio a nadie.
The niece hid the key to the book room and gave it to nobody.
Pero él seguía hablando de gigantes, de castillos y de reinos lejanos.
But he went on talking about giants, castles and distant kingdoms.
Aunque estaba delgado y amarillo, no dejaba de contar sus aventuras.
Although he was thin and sallow, he never stopped telling his adventures.
Se las contaba a quien entrara en el cuarto, aunque fuera solo a barrer.
He told them to anyone who came into the room, even if only to sweep.
La sobrina le suplicaba que dejara de leer para siempre.
His niece begged him to give up reading for good.
El cura le decía que volviera a ocuparse de sus tierras, como los hidalgos tranquilos.
The priest told him to go back to seeing to his land, the way quiet gentlemen do.
El barbero, más práctico, le hablaba del precio de la lana y del trigo.
The barber, more practical, talked to him about the price of wool and wheat.
Don Quijote escuchaba, les daba la razón y volvía a empezar al día siguiente.
Don Quixote listened, agreed with them, and started again the next day.
El ama repetía que aquella casa seguía siendo una casa tranquila.
The housekeeper kept saying that this was still a quiet house.
Sancho, mientras tanto, había vuelto a su casa sin dinero y sin ínsula.
Sancho, meanwhile, had gone back home with no money and no island.
Su mujer solo le preguntó una cosa, que era la única que le importaba.
His wife asked him only one thing, which was the only thing she cared about.
Quería saber qué había sacado de tantos meses de camino y de golpes.
She wanted to know what he had got out of so many months of road and beatings.
Él respondió que lo mejor de servir a un caballero no se cuenta en monedas.
He answered that the best of serving a knight cannot be counted in coins.
Y siguió comiendo tranquilamente, sin levantar los ojos del plato.
And he went on eating calmly, without lifting his eyes from his plate.
Durante un mes, en casa del hidalgo, nadie volvió a nombrar la caballería.
For a month, in the gentleman’s house, nobody mentioned chivalry again.
El cura y el barbero dejaron de visitarlo, para no recordarle nada.
The priest and the barber stopped visiting him, so as not to remind him of anything.
Parecía que todo había terminado y que el enfermo iba mejorando.
It looked as if it was all over and the patient was getting better.
Pero don Quijote no había dejado de pensar en salir por tercera vez.
But Don Quixote had not stopped thinking about setting out a third time.
En cuanto pudo levantarse, empezó a hablar otra vez de Dulcinea.
As soon as he could get up, he began to talk about Dulcinea again.
Lo hacía despacio, como quien vuelve a tocar un tema prohibido.
He did it slowly, like a man returning to a forbidden subject.
El cura lo escuchó una tarde entera y no dijo nada delante de él.
The priest listened to him for a whole afternoon and said nothing in front of him.
Pero entendió perfectamente que aquello iba a volver a empezar.
But he understood perfectly well that it was all going to start over.
Vocabulary
Seguir, dejar and volver
- seguir + gerundio
- to go on doing
- dejar de + infinitivo
- to stop doing
- volver a + infinitivo
- to do again
- empezar a + infinitivo
- to start doing
- acabar de + infinitivo
- to have just done
- ir + gerundio
- to be gradually doing
- llevar + gerundio
- to have been doing for
- ponerse a + infinitivo
- to set about doing
The patient at home
- el caldo
- the broth
- cuidar
- to look after
- mejorar
- to get better
- delgado
- thin
- amarillo
- sallow
- la llave
- the key
- barrer
- to sweep
- prohibido
- forbidden
A gentleman’s quiet life
- ocuparse de
- to see to
- la tierra
- the land
- la lana
- wool
- el trigo
- wheat
- el precio
- the price
- suplicar
- to beg
- nombrar
- to mention
- la caballería
- knight errantry
Periphrases: seguir, dejar de, volver a
Él seguía hablando de gigantes y de castillos.
No dejaba de contar sus aventuras a nadie.
Volvía a empezar al día siguiente.
These are the joints of spoken Spanish. Each is a small verb that has given up its own meaning in order to say something about the verb that follows it: does the action continue, does it end, does it repeat, is it just beginning, has it just finished.
1. The three of this lesson
| periphrasis | what it says | English | from this story |
|---|---|---|---|
| seguir + gerund | it continues | to still be doing, to go on doing | seguía hablando de gigantes |
| dejar de + infinitive | it ends | to stop doing | dejaron de visitarlo |
| volver a + infinitive | it happens again | to do again | volvió a empezar |
Look hard at the second one, because it takes an infinitive while the first takes a gerund, and getting that backwards is the most common error here. ✗ dejó de leyendo, ✗ seguía hablar. The rule is worth memorising as a pair: seguir goes with -ndo, dejar de and volver a go with the plain infinitive.
2. Volver a, and why it saves you
English has an adverb for repetition, again, and drops it at the end of the sentence. Spanish has otra vez, but far more often it puts the repetition into the verb itself.
| English | Spanish, natural |
|---|---|
| He read it again. | Volvió a leerlo. |
| She never wrote to me again. | No volvió a escribirme. |
| Nobody mentioned it again. | Nadie volvió a nombrarlo. |
And note that this volver has nothing to do with returning to a place. Volvió a su aldea is coming home. Volvió a empezar is starting over. Same verb, and only the a plus infinitive tells you which.
3. No dejar de, the double negative
No dejaba de contar sus aventuras does not mean he did not stop. It means he never stopped, which is to say he did it constantly. Spanish uses this shape as a way of insisting, and it is everywhere in ordinary speech.
| Spanish | what it really says |
|---|---|
| No dejaba de hablar. | He talked without a break. |
| No dejes de escribirme. | Make sure you write to me. |
| No deja de ser raro. | It is odd all the same. |
4. Four more worth having now
| periphrasis | meaning | example |
|---|---|---|
| empezar a + infinitive | the action starts | Empezó a hablar de Dulcinea. |
| acabar de + infinitive | it happened a moment ago | Acaba de llegar de Salamanca. |
| ir + gerund | little by little | El enfermo iba mejorando. |
| llevar + gerund | how long it has been going on | Llevaba un mes durmiendo mal. |
That last one is a genuine gift, because it replaces the English have been doing for, which Spanish cannot build with a perfect tense. ✗ He estado durmiendo mal por un mes is what learners say. Llevo un mes durmiendo mal is what Spanish says.
Ten years of silence and a second part
The first part of Don Quixote came out in 1605 and was a hit. The second part did not appear until 1615, when Cervantes was sixty-eight and had a year left to live. This lesson sits exactly on the seam. The last thing we saw was the ox cart arriving in the village at the end of part one, and the first thing part two does is put us in the sick room a month later, with the priest and the barber deciding to stay away for a while so as not to stir anything up.
What Cervantes does in that opening chapter is quietly ruthless. The two friends finally visit, and they find a Don Quixote who talks intelligently about politics, about government, about the affairs of the kingdom, so reasonably that they begin to believe he is cured. Then the conversation drifts towards knights errant, and within a few sentences he is defending the historical existence of Amadís of Gaul with complete conviction. Nothing has been fixed. The month of broth and closed shutters bought a month.
Notice how much of this lesson is built out of verbs that mean continuing, stopping and starting again, and how little any of them settle. He goes on talking, they stop visiting, he starts again, it is all going to start over. That is not a stylistic accident on the part of a course writer: it is the actual subject of the chapter. Part two is a book about a man who cannot stop, written by an old man who was running out of time to finish it.
One more thing was waiting in those ten years, and it will matter in two lessons. Somebody else had noticed how well the first part sold.
Cervantes in the original
el cura y el barbero se estuvieron casi un mes sin verle, por no renovarle y traerle a la memoria las cosas pasadas
the priest and the barber were nearly a month without seeing him, so as not to reopen things and bring the past back to his mind.
These are among the first words of part two, written ten years after part one, and they are doing something very deliberate. Cervantes does not restart with an adventure. He restarts with two men deciding not to visit. The construction estarse un mes sin verle is a close cousin of this lesson’s dejar de visitarlo: both say that something has stopped, but estarse sin adds the sense of holding oneself back, of a deliberate abstention that costs something. Then por no renovarle, where por no plus an infinitive gives the reason for not doing something, a very Spanish way of packing a whole purpose clause into three words. And the verb renovar is the sharp one. It means to renew, and what they are afraid of renewing is his madness, as though it were a wound that would open if touched. They are wrong, of course. It never closed.